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3 ideas
12668 | Metaphysical necessity holds between things in the world and things they make true [Ellis] |
Full Idea: Metaphysical necessitation is the relation that holds between things in the world and the things they make true. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 1) | |
A reaction: Not sure about that. It implies that it is sentences that have necessity, and he confirms it by calling it 'a semantic relation'. So there are no necessities if there are no sentences? Not the Brian Ellis we know and love. |
12687 | Metaphysical necessities are those depending on the essential nature of things [Ellis] |
Full Idea: A metaphysically necessary proposition is one that is true in virtue of the essential nature of things. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 6) | |
A reaction: It take this to be what Kit Fine argues for, though it tracks back to Aristotle. I also take it to be correct, though one might ask whether there are any other metaphysical necessities, ones not depending on essences. |
13081 | Even extreme modal realists might allow transworld identity for abstract objects [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: It might be suggested that even the extreme modal realist can countenance transworld identity for abstract objects. | |
From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 3.2.2 n46) | |
A reaction: This may sound right for uncontroversial or well-defined abstracta such as numbers and circles, but even 'or' is ambiguous, and heaven knows what the transworld identity of 'democracy' is! |